The Other Side
by Xanda
Summary: TR: Legend. Twoparter. What if Lara didn't hold back when threatening Amanda in Bolivia? What if Rutland didn't die? He's still determined to reach Avalon, no matter what the cost.


_What if Lara didn't hold back when threatening Amanda? And what if Rutland didn't die? I've always been intrigued by the Bolivia: Redux level, and so this is my outlet. Constructive criticism and praise welcome, flames are not. Enjoy._

Sword in the stone...check. Pillars activated correctly...check. Now for the final stage...

The sword slid in easily, not even needing a push to send it further into the dais it was set into. It rotated once as it sunk further into the stone, and then came to rest at the bottom of the makeshift lock. A slight rumble indicated that the job was done correctly – history would now repeat itself.

Strong senses of déjà vu swept over Lara as she watched the large circle encompassing the stone flooring start spinning, and eventually stand of its own accord, to face her, just behind the stone dais. The ground shook mildly beneath her boot-clad feet, sending slight shockwaves through the young woman. What would happen this time? Lara certainly didn't want a repeat of what had happened all those years ago. The event had claimed her mother's life...and Lara didn't want to lose hers just yet. She reminded herself over and over. _Don't touch the sword._

The circle was now spinning quite quickly, and it was producing what could only be described as magic. Strong green light pulsated in the centre of the spinning circular frame. And then came the voices. However something was different – they were much clearer this time round. Lara's previous encounter with the portal had resulted in foggy, distorted voices and murmurs, and the inability to decipher exactly what was happening. Lara was prepared this time, and had unconsciously taken a defensive stance, in case the circle imploded again.

She had only been eight or nine years old last time, and so used this as an excuse for her fear of the unknown. Lara hadn't intended to active the dais back then, her curiosity had got the better of her, but she'd activated it anyway. Strangely, when the circle had produced the green glow, she hadn't been afraid, as she was too interested and absorbed in what the dais was doing. It was only when her mother intervened and spoken with the light in panicked tones that she began to worry. Her mother was shouting, something that was rare judging on Lara's past experiences with her, and this had set the unease. Lara could still picture the look on her mother's face just before she pulled out the sword from the dais, and it was this that made her fearful on this day.

The voices this time were crystal clear. Lara's eyes widened as her mother's voice floated through the green light.

"_No, get back! Good lord, what is it?"_

And then, her own nine-year-old voice. Lara, fascinated, took a step toward the dais, a part of her still clueless as to what was happening.

"_There's something in the light!"_ Those ill-fated words had sent her mother to investigate, and even now Lara regretted saying them. Perhaps if she'd just stepped away, her mother would have rushed her out of there...No. It was no use dwelling on the past.

However, it seemed like the past wanted her to think about it. Lara couldn't believe her eyes when her mother, still as young as she'd been on the day she had died, stepped into the green light. However, Lara quickly realised that she was merely an image projected into the light.

"Mother...?" She blinked, hardly daring to believe it. The words spoken were exactly the same...could this possibly be "the other side", as Lara had dubbed it? The foggy voices on the other side of the portal...were they her own?

"_What?" _Her mother's panicked voice matched the expression on her face. Lara was engaged in another sense of déjà vu as her memory provided that same expression she'd seen her mother wear on the fated day. _"Who are you?"_

"Mother?" Lara repeated, eager and desperate to communicate with her mother, more so to gain an understanding of the current events. Maybe history wasn't repeating itself...perhaps it was happening right now! "It's Lara! Your daughter!" The distorted voice had been difficult to understand when her younger self had seen the event, and so Lara yelled it, hoping her mother could hear.

It seemed she had. _"What? What about my daughter?"_

Finally it twigged. Somehow, though logically it defied the laws of earth, Lara was here in the present, in her mid-twenties form, standing before the dais and yelling into it, and was also nine years old and looking to her mother, worried, on the other side. It made sense – Lara was currently in Bolivia, whereas her mother and younger self had activated the dais in Nepal. Lara took another step toward it, desperate to stop her mother from touching the sword. Now was her opportunity to re-write history, and perhaps save her mother from death.

"Don't touch the sword!" Lara yelled through the green light, desperate to make her mother understand.

"_She meant no harm!"_ Her mother hadn't heard. Lara stared at the image of her mother, something inside her exploding to get out. This was her only chance to save her mother – if she let this opportunity slip, she would regret it for the rest of her life. Her mother couldn't touch that sword, no matter what the cost.

"Take out the sword!" Lara jumped slightly at the new voice. She was horrified – not only was it tragic advice, but the voice belonged to her former friend. Amanda had somehow regained consciousness after the exhausting and draining fight she had fought just minutes earlier. Amanda wanted to activate the dais herself, and had used the power of a stone she had taken from a tomb to transform herself into a monster. Lara, tired enough from the fight with her other enemy, James Rutland, and his goons, had manipulated the power of the sword to win. Amanda had collapsed, and Lara had thought it was safe to proceed with the dais.

"What?" Lara couldn't believe her ears. So the second voice in the distorted mass through the portal had been Amanda's...but why was she telling Lara's mother to extract the sword? "No!" Lara cried in vain to try to stop her. Amanda, still laid on the floor, looked equally as determined to get the sword out of the stone. "Mother! Mother, listen to me-"

"It will explode, unless you pull out the sword!" Amanda yelled toward Lara's general direction. In the light, Lara's mother panicked, and yanked out the sword from the dais. A lead weight hit Lara's stomach as, deep down, she realised that she'd failed. Her mother had died once again, right in front of her eyes, and she'd been unable to stop it. Raw grief tore through her heart, and clenched her fist. But before she could tear into Amanda, the dais rumbled violently.

"No!" Lara yelled again, as the green light began to explode. Using her lightning reflexes, she managed to jump of the way, just as the light exploded, and the circle crumbled. The dais shattered, and the force sent the sword flying. Lara, however, wasn't paying attention. This was definitely unexpected, and the pain of losing her mother once again consumed her. She wanted to take the sword, and stab the ground over and over again. This was the first time in a long time that Lara had felt so helpless.

"You idiot!" Amanda's voice found its way through the fog of anger and pain, and Lara looked up to seeAmanda on her knees in front of her. The sword had landed just before Lara, and was standing blade-down in the ground. "You've ruined everything!"

No apology, no explanation, nothing. Lara couldn't stop the flood of anger that swept through her thoughts as she laid eyes upon Amanda. And though very deep down she knew it was wrong, Lara wanted revenge. Amanda had purposefully killed her mother...and all the time, Lara had been beating herself up about it. She stood slowly, anger pulsating through her brown eyes, and glared at Amanda.

"All these years I blamed myself, and it was you!" Lara's anger reached boiling point, and she yanked her pistol from its holster. She released the safety mechanism, and pointed the barrel straight at Amanda's unprotected head. "You killed her!"

Amanda was slightly alarmed. She had expected anger, but could see the pure hatred etched in Lara's eyes. She was angry with Lara herself – after all, the tomb raider had destroyed her last chance at reaching Avalon. But she was also slightly afraid. "Killed her?" Amanda first tried reasoning with Lara. "She's not dead!" Her own anger began surfacing. "She went where I was supposed to go, where you could have gone!"

Gone where? Lara was sick of questions with no answers. "Make sense, right this second, or I swear, I will execute you where you stand!" Lara jabbed her gun at Amanda, to make it clear that she wasn't joking. Amanda, however, was fuming, and the gun against her head served as a minor distraction.

"I told you to take out the sword, I told y-"

But Lara didn't want to hear it. Amanda had killed her mother for her own selfish purposes. A gunshot punctuated every word of her next question, something, to which Lara was also desperate for an answer.

"WHERE IS MY MOTHER?"

"Avalon!" Amanda finally shouted the answer Lara had been seeking, flinching from when Lara had pulled the trigger. After all of her research, Amanda had expected Lara to understand about the dais. Her ignorance was annoying Amanda. "It's not a myth, don't you get it?" She inhaled and exhaled loudly. Lara didn't _deserve_ to reach Avalon. It was her prize! Lara had already taken James from her, and maybe if she got to Avalon, Amanda would be re-united with him. "You'll never understand!" Amanda glared at Lara, now unafraid of her. "I'm wasting my breath."

_And I'm wasting my energy holding this gun up,_ thought Lara. She'd gone too far. Lara, seething, held the gun straight at Amanda's head. Amanda held her angry gaze, knowing Lara wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. She was right – Lara decided that Amanda wasn't worth the bullet, and angrily yanked the gun away from her head. Lara turned, deciding her next move, and upon seeing the sword impaled on the ground, her anger spiked. She turned swiftly, and brought the butt of the gun crashing down on Amanda's temple.

Amanda's eyes widened, shocked. Her mouth opened slightly, forming a silent "oh" of surprise. Where the gun had struck, a trickle of blood oozed, and Amanda still held Lara's shocked gaze as she collapsed to the floor. Lara, however, was frozen. The blow was fatal, she could see that, and she didn't need to check Amanda's pulse to know that there was no life left in her. Lara backed away slightly, and dropped her gun to the floor. She had only intended to render Amanda unconscious.

"Lara?" Zip's concerned voice broke through her headset, jerking her out of her shock. Lara broke Amanda's dead gaze, and turned back to the shattered dais, unable to speak. She had taken many lives, but the shock of seeing her former friend killed by her own hands had unsettled her. Clearing her throat, Lara focussed her blurry gaze on one of the pillars. She knew that Zip, her technician, had seen everything that had happened, thanks to her microscopic camera attached to her Personal Light Source, and so quickly changed the subject, unwilling to talk about it.

"For years my father believed mother was still alive..." Lara forced her mind onto the situation. The dais puzzle still lay unsolved, and the sword was even more of a mystery. Lara was sceptical, despite all of her experience, that such as place as Avalon existed, and so was determined to find the true meaning of the sword. However, her father's reports and studies were starting to sway her. As she ran off her next tasks to Zip and her faithful friend and co-worker, Alistor, Lara studied the pillars one last time, before heading for the rope that would lead back to the helicopter that was waiting to take her back home.

"Lara, wait," Zip's voice crackled through the headset. She stopped and placed a hand on the rope.

"What is it?"

"I've just been searching for more info on the sword. And you'll never guess what," Lara's ears pricked up in anticipation. "I found another dais." Zip sounded excited, and knew from experience that Lara would be intrigued. "Want me to patch the location through?"

Lara stared into the distance, thinking quickly. She had planned on bringing the sword back to England for analysis, but this threw something else onto the table. A third dais...Was it really possible that it would be linked to the first two? After all, there were only two sides to the portal she'd just activated. What would she achieve from activating the third? "Zip, I'm not so sure on this one. Unless this dais is connected to the other two, it wouldn't make any sense to disturb it."

"True, but there's something else." Zip's voice took the tone that Lara had learned meant 'bad news'. For the first time on the quest, Lara felt truly frustrated. She thought she'd finally solved the mystery about the portal, and the voices through it, and now this. "Alistor got in touch with Professor Eddington, and he says that we need more evidence."

"More evidence?" Lara frowned into the distance, and massaged her pounding temple. "The camera picked up everything that hap-"

"Unfortunately, no. The light from the portal distorted the image, and there was some interference with the sound that stopped the recording. It only picked up after your argument with Amanda. Eddington says that this won't be enough evidence to base his research upon."

_Dammit._ "So, the new dais would give me an opportunity to film what happens when the dais is activated from a better angle?" Lara knew where this was heading. So much for a comfortable night in Croft Manor. "All right, I'll go straight away. It will also give me the chance to explore the dais more carefully. I was a little surprised the last time." At least this time round, there would be nobody to interfere with the activation. Lara felt a fresh wave of guilt about Amanda. She sheathed the sword, and gripped the rope with both hands. "Where am I heading now?"

"This one's near Ayers Rock in Australia. Bit of a trek, but it'll be worth it."

Lara noticed the weariness in Zip's voice. _It's all right for him; I'm the one running around three countries in one day._ "I'll leave now, then. Make sure Alistor and you get some rest. I'll call when I reach Ayers Rock."

With that, Lara dropped, and grappled across the rope leading to the other platform. Zip had informed her that the helicopter was waiting just through the tomb, and so she jogged through the passage that would lead to the entrance. So absorbed in recent events, she didn't know of another that was unfolding right behind her.

* * *

As Lara reached the other side and ran for the helicopter, someone amongst the mass of dead bodies stirred. A low groan of pain escaped his lips, and he turned to his side, coughing up a small amount of blood. He had heard everything that had just happened, and knew exactly what Lara's plans were next. Balling his fist, he punched the ground angrily, and ferocious determination spread through him like a wildfire. He would get revenge on her, revenge for taking Amanda from him, and he would reach Avalon, no matter what the cost.

He knew he needed to be careful, though. The sword that Ms. Croft currently had in her possession was extremely powerful – the pain emanating from his stomach was enough to tell him that. And if used against him again, well, he wouldn't live to tell the tale. He couldn't let her win this one, though. He would be the one to reach Avalon, and she would not stop him.

Luckily for him, he had the advantage. Amanda had researched the locations of the daises specifically, and so he knew the exact location of the dais in Australia. Lara, without this precise knowledge yet, would have to do some analysis and research before finding the dais herself...meaning she would be delayed. Perfect.

He stood with difficulty, and limped over to one of his dead soldiers. Taking his radio from him, he held a hand to his wounded stomach, knowing he would have to get it bandaged and attended to before he went running around Australia. The radio crackled to life in his other hand.

"This is Rutland," he spoke into the radio, "I need a chopper to pick me up and take me back to HQ. We have work to do."

"Yes, sir," came the response, and Rutland could hear the helicopter blades kick into life in the background. He grinned, knowing that everything was falling to place. He would reach Avalon yet.

_To be continued..._


End file.
